Is exercise good for your brain?

Sep 4, 2013

Hi Dr. Fawcett. a recent study found that exercise reduced neurocognitive impairment by half for people with hiv. http://www.thebodypro.com/content/72474/exercise-can-improve-mental-health-for-people-livi.html
but it seems they only asked if the participants exercised within the last 72 hours. This hardly seems like long-term data. Can we trust the results?

Response from Dr. Fawcett

Thanks for writing. You are correct that a limitation of this particular study is the short duration of the exercise period. However, there are numerous studies of the health benefits of exercise and cognition in general, so I think these data are important. HIV-related cognitive disorders can be very subtle, making them difficult to study and quantify. It just seems to be common sense that exercise would benefit cognitive functioning. I believe we'll see more studies in the future that confirm this for HIV-related impairments.

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